Allegation of abortions
In her 1886 interview with "vitriolic anti-Mormon journalist W. Wyl", Sarah Pratt alleged that Joseph Smith allowed [John C.] Bennett, a medical doctor, to perform abortions on Smith's polygamous wives who were officially single. In a public charge "that was likely true," according to author Andrew Smith, Bennett was accused by many of performing abortions, including Hyrum Smith; Zeruiah Goddard claimed Bennett told Sarah Pratt "that he could cause abortion with perfect safety to the mother at any stage of pregnancy, and that he had frequently destroyed and removed infants before their time to prevent exposure of the parties, and that he had instruments for that purpose." If the women refused, Bennett stated that he came with Joseph's approval. Sarah Pratt herself recounted an incident in which“
[Bennett was en route to do] "a little job for Joseph [because] one of his women was in trouble." Saying this, he took [out] a pretty long instrument of a kind I had never seen before. It seemed to be of steel and was crooked at one end. I heard afterwards that the operation had been performed; that the woman was very sick, and that Joseph was very much afraid that she might die, but she recovered. - Wymetal 1886, pp. 60–61
”Pratt also related her observations of Bennett's work for Joseph Smith to Smith's son Joseph Smith III,“
I saw that he was not inclined to believe the truth about his father, so I said to him: 'You pretend to have revelations from the Lord. Why don't you ask the Lord to tell you what kind of a man your father really was?' He answered: 'If my father had so many connections with women, where is the progeny?' I said to him: 'Your father had mostly intercourse with married women, and as to single ones, Dr. Bennett was always on hand, when anything happened.' - Wymetal 1886, pp. 60–61
”However, Smith III's own published account differed from Pratt's recollection,“
Did he ever at such times or at any other time or place make improper overtures to you, or proposals of an improper nature—begging your pardon for the apparent indelicacy of this question? To this Mrs. Pratt replied, quietly but firmly, "No, Joseph; your father never said an improper word to me in his life. He knew better." Sister Pratt, it has been frequently told that he behaved improperly in your presence, and I have been told that I dare not come to you and ask you about your relations with him, for fear you would tell me things which would be unwelcome to me. "You need have no such fear," she repeated. "Your father was never guilty of an action or proposal of an improper nature in my house, towards me, or in my presence, at any time or place. There is no truth in the reports that have been circulated about him in this regard. He was always the Christian gentleman, and a noble man." - Saints' Herald, January 15, 1935, 80; January 22, 1935, 109–110
